


Downtime

by mortalitasi



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Fluff, General, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 15:08:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2196456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Yma Shepard angrily questions why turians have to be so goddamn bony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Downtime

“You keep fidgeting.”

“That’s because no matter where I sit there’s bits of you  _poking me_ ,” she complains, pushing a palm against his carapace in demonstration. “How do you ever get comfortable? You rip up half of the things you lie down on.”

“How do  _you_ ever do anything with skin the consistency of paper?” he shoots back, hefting himself up on the sofa and catching her when she begins sliding off the edge, careful not to dig his claws into her arms. “Unless you want something else  _poking you_ , I suggest you stop.”

She quirks a brow at him. “Very sexy,” she comments, and grunts when the point of his elbow burrows into her shoulder. The datapad in her hands slips onto her lap. “I am going to get no work done this way.”

“It was your idea to try and be more like a normal couple,” Garrus reminds her, resting his chin on the crown of her head. Her hair smells sweet, like human spices and the thing they call shampoo.

The scent used to put him off, but after serving on the Normandy he’s learned to get used to it – even appreciate it, when it’s as subtle as this. It suits her. He knows she’s had time to relax and rest if he can smell shampoo on her hair. He brushes some of it away from her ears, feeling it tickle the soft underside of his hand. “It’s gotten longer.”

“Mm.”

“You going to let it grow?”

She flicks through the next bunch of statistics on her datapad. “Dunno. I haven’t really thought about it. Why the sudden interest?”

“It was long on the SR-1,” he says, remembering the sweep of her ponytail between her shoulder blades. It hadn’t been red then, either. Or at least, not this red. She’d been what Kaidan had called a strawberry-blonde. He’d never gotten to ask Kaidan where the name had come from, and after Virmire it’d been impossible.

That feels like centuries ago, as though it happened to them in another life. He’d been different then. They all had.

Yma laughs a little and looks at him. “Turian, human… guys are all the same. Is it coded into you to like long hair?” she asks and leans into the touch of his hand. “Maybe after everything’s over, I will.”

He gives a happy hum and squeezes his arms around her. He’s shut his eyes and pressed his muzzle to her neck when she makes an unhappy sound.

“Your collarbone is killing me,” she says and wriggles out of his embrace. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

“Yma…?”

–

Sam’s been up for just a bit over twelve hours when she gathers her hourly reports and takes the elevator up to the commander’s cabin to make her daily delivery.

She’s so engrossed in keeping the haphazard pile of datapads in her arms balanced (and fantasizing about going back to her wonderful bunk) that she doesn’t notice the commander isn’t at the door to greet her. She only realizes something’s off when she’s put the datapads down on Shepard’s desk.

“Commander?” she says quietly, her eyes scanning the room for signs of life. She peeks her head around the display case mounted with miniature ships and almost laughs aloud when she sees who’s sitting on the sofa adjacent to the cabin bed.

Vakarian’s fallen asleep with his head lolled back against the wall, his fringe casting a long shadow; the commander is resting in his arms, the side of her temple nestled in the crook between his neck and carapace. Datapads with dim screens are strewn around their tangled legs.

Samantha creeps away from the desk on light feet, hiding a smile behind her hand as she turns the lights down from the control panel near the fish tank. She’s just about to make it out the door when she figures out that the crumpled white shape squished between them is a pillow from the bed. Innovation at its very best, she thinks as she steps out of the room and goes for the elevator.

“EDI, tell any visitors they shouldn’t be disturbed for the next hour or so,” Sam says and hits the button for CIC. 

The AI sounds almost pleased when it answers her. “Understood, Operative Traynor.” 


End file.
